Queensland are killing feral cats as fast as they can but are plagued by rats

I’m told that the feral cats of Australia are larger than the usual European variety (see link below) because they have plenty of food and good conditions under which to flourish. Australia’s feral cats are consistently blamed for killing native species including small mammals and marsupials. The small mammals that the feral cat kills are not dissimilar to rats in size. And many small marsupials are killed by the feral cats which are also the size of rats such as the bilby, bandicoot, bettong and numbat.

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Two useful tags. Click either to see the articles:- Toxic to cats | Dangers to cats

The rat is a small mammal. Not all feral cats attack and kill rats but the ones in Australia are praised to the sky for their devastating hunting prowess by the Australia authorities and my research tells me that Queensland’s feral cats kill rats rather efficiently in which case why do they continue to kill feral cats as fast as possible when the current news is that there is a biblical plague of rats in Queensland, specifically Karumba, a small fishing village. The rats are everywhere in that village.

I am not saying that a reprieve against the eradication of feral cats will solve the rat problem of Karumba but it might help and the residents need help according to the reports.

“[The rats] are eating everything they can get their hands on. They come in waves and, I dunno, they almost seem trained and organised but they’re there in numbers mate and they swim around in the rivers like little puppy dogs and they’re in numbers. They’re climbing up all the commercial fishing boats by their anchor chains and any other submersible pumps and they’re causing havoc with everything mate, you know.”

Resident of Karumba

You know what comes to my mind: the Great Plague of London (1665 to 1666) caused by fleas on rats but the experts at the time believed that the feral cats were the cause of the plague so they killed the cats which made matters worse as the rats were able to flourish. That’s the theory. It bears a resemblance to the current rat plague in Queensland. “The Great Plague of London, lasting from 1665 to 1666, was the last major epidemic of the bubonic plague to occur in England.” – Wikipedia.

Cats are natural predators of rodents, particularly rats, which are known to be carriers of fleas that can transmit the bacteria responsible for the bubonic plague. By reducing the population of cats, the natural predator-prey balance was disrupted, leading to an increase in the rat population. This, in turn, could have exacerbated the spread of the plague, as more rats would have been available to carry and spread the disease.

Poe an AI computer providing an answer to a question about the bubonic plague.

My gut feeling is that Australia’s obsession with killing feral cats will have unintended consequences as the feral cat is part of Australia’s ecosystem. And they are top predators. Remove them and the food chain is upset. I wonder if the authorities have factored this in. Feral cats have been on the Australian continent since the European settlers arrived on ships with domestic cats. Some were released into the wild and bingo they had the first feral cats. The first Europeans arrived in Australia in 1788.

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Feral cats have been around in Australia for 200 years or so. Long enough for them to become very well established and part of the ecosystem and time enough to evolve into an exceptional predator of rats. My research tells me that Australian feral cats prey on rats, sometimes extensively and as a priority.

A study: “Diet of the feral cat, Felis catus, in central Australian grassland habitats during population cycles of its principal prey” dated 2014 came to the conclusion that:

Rats comprised about 80% of cats’ diet by volume and frequency of occurrence when they were present, whereas birds, reptiles and invertebrates comprised the bulk of the diet when rats were not available.

Study finding.

The finding of the study also indicates that if there are rats the feral cats will eat them in preference to birds and reptiles. Might not this help to protect these native species?

Australia has had rat plagues in the past and rats have caused the extinction of Australian native species.

Exotic rats have caused or contributed to the extinction of a number of Australian native bird species by preying on their eggs and young chicks.

Source: Advice to the Minister for the Environment and Heritage from the Threatened Species Scientific Committee (the Committee) on Amendments to the List of Key Threatening Processes under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act)

The conclusion is to reassess the usefulness of the Australian feral cat as a pest controller.

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